Some of you reading this will know I’m a irrationaly huge Saints fan… thus, it’s very difficult to come out of the dark place in my soul to say anything about last night’s game. You hate to lose games like that as a fan. The Packers won a thriller thanks to their stop of Mark Ingram from the one yard line with no time on the clock and won 42-34. As much as I’d love to talk/vent/cope about the Saints’ pass defense, turnovers, red zone inefficiency, and lack of ability to get one yard… we’re here to talk about the ratings bonanza the game was for NBC. It was one of the most exciting regular season games in a long time and definitely the most compelling opening to a regular season in recent league history. The game received a huge 17.2 overnight rating and NBC was all over the news…

According to Darren Rovell, it’s the same number last year’s BCS National Title game pulled in. Considering college football is by plenty of accounts the second most popular sport in America, it says just how far the NFL is ahead of its competition. As far as the announcers and the broadcast goes, I thought Michaels and Collinsworth were solid. For my money, they’re still the best announce team in the NFL and NBC has the best game presentation although I admittedly wasn’t too focused on that last night. I am surprised that the number is down from last year with all the excitement of football being back though. I would have thought the uncertainty of the lockout and the nationwide relief/excitement of a real NFL game would have brought a larger number. However, it is still the second highest NBC game in their Sunday night era. Even though last year’s Saints/Vikings game pulled in a bigger rating, I’m going to give credit there to the story of the Saints winning a title for New Orleans and not the old guy with the texting. In fact, that may be the best part about the 2011 season – we’re finally free of Favre! At least I have that to be happy about.

Now to watch the last play from last night 1,000 times on my DVR and hope Mark Ingram actually gets in the endzone on one of them…